Describes various elementary school activities using a loaf of raisin bread to promote inquiry skills. Activities include estimating the number of raisins in the loaf by constructing histograms of the number of raisins in a slice. (MLH)

Discusses the fact that when the materials or interactions used as a basis for a science activity posses a high degree of familiarity, the student may rely on past experience rather than on gathering data to use in making judgments. In such cases, a simple request for observed evidence should be made. (MLH)

Describes some specific activities to be used on the first day of science class to demonstrate science as a process and to allow students the use of inquiry skills in problem solving. (BR)

The author suggests how the quantitative analysis of data from census records, assessment roles, and newspapers may be integrated into the classroom. Suggestions for obtaining quantitative data are provided. (DE)

Describes an interdisciplinary humanities program in Cedar Falls, Iowa, which incorporates science with five other disciplines. The article outlines the units used as well as the science-related activities and suggests program evaluation techniques. (BR)

Presents some considerations about the variable of "wait time," a pause after a teacher question so that students can think or a pause after a student statement. (PEB)

"High level" questions require analytical, synthesizing, and evaluative responses; "low level" questions require acquisition and comprehension of information. Students responding to high level questions showed greater changes in their social attitudes. (JH) questions

Alternatives to the United States history survey course including the laboratory approach, local history approach, thematic content approach, comparative approach, and interdisciplinary approach are examined. (DE)

Pupils' natural questioning attitudes lead them to discovery in a learning center, in contrast to the lecture method, by which information is forced on students regardless of their interests. This paper describes learning experiences built around rocks. Materials placed in a rock center (rocks, stones, pebbles, magnifying glasses hammers, and…

The objectives of the 2-year Thinking Skills Project were to provide teachers and students with a set of thinking skills, to develop and validate a model of cognition for teachers, to devise a Measure of Questioning Skills, and to establish a normative base for this instrument. The model of essential thinking skills covers the basic processes: (1)…

The central failure of conventional, or positivistic inquiry has been the inability to handle deception in research and the violation of societal ethics, moral and legal caused by such deception. Moral dimensions include tests for whether the research would be approved by reasonable persons, whether it might pass the test of publicity, and whether…

Egon G. Guba and Yvonna S. Lincoln were among the first to develop a set of extensive criteria for establishing naturalistic inquiry as a disciplined research methodology. The naturalistic paradigm--also called post-positivist, ethnographic, phenomenological, and qualitative--has gained acceptance as a legitimate alternative to the previously…

This paper suggests that library and information systems provide access to claims to knowledge rather than to knowledge or information and that such claims to knowledge are in fact claims to truth. The stated purpose of the paper is to explain why the library and information community should adhere to at least soft, if not hard, skepticism with…